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...PLEASE stop using the 4200 unless you're going to offer an automatically switchable and far superior discrete option. Would it be outlandish to use the Mobility 5470 at the very least instead of throwing out the same 500-700MHz 40SP solutions?Reply

We should be seeing the Toshiba Satellite A665D-S6059 soon, which combines the HD 4250 with a discrete HD 5650 and provides switching functionality. It also has the Phenom II P920 quad-core (only 1.6GHz though). I'm certainly interested in seeing how it works, and hopefully GPU driver updates won't be a problem... except it looks like Toshiba is opting out of AMD's Mobile Driver program. Ugh.Reply

I think it's fair in that we're comparing laptops that have both been around for four months. But you're right, Danube is the real comparison now and we're working to get some appropriate laptops. I inadvertently lumped all the new AMD laptops under the Nile header, but that's the ultraportable version of Danube; we should have both in the next couple of weeks.Reply

We can ask for the Vostro 3500... no idea if we'll get one. As for the GPU clock, that's a good point. Is there a good utility to show your current clock? I have no idea if the NV5933u every scaled up to 667 or not; GPUZ and CPUZ don't report the IGP frequency on Intel.Reply

Not always, it won'tSince the IGP has to Turbo up to get to either 677 or 766, and the i5s and i7s have higher CPU frequencies, there is sometimes less power/heat headroom for the GPU to actually clock up.Reply

We never had the 1005p for testing (or any other 3-cell netbook), so I'm not sure what it does for battery life other than it would be lower. :-) Relative battery life should be about the same, though, so at 23Wh it should last roughly half as long as the 1001p.

The 1005pe (and any other Pine Trail netbook as well as the older N270/N280) is capable of 720p x264 if you use the CoreAVC codec; anything else and you drop frames in my experience. Higher bitrate 720p would also cause problems, and you get tearing (no VSYNC) with CoreAVC in my experience. As far as Internet video (Flash... not sure about the HTML5 stuff yet), Atom fails utterly unless you get ION/NG-ION.Reply

I meaned 1005p with 11hrs (6cells, 48W/h) battery nor 3cell .could you please say what player you use with coreavc ? WMP ?I read that wmp12 in win 7 can play 720p x264 on atom 1.66GHz beacuse of its multithread codeks . is it right?mojtaba alemi from iranReply

I used Media Player Classic Home Cinema in my more recent testing. I think I tried WMP11 in the past and it worked as well (maybe?), but I don't think I've ever tested with WMP12 and x264. I don't have any Atom laptops right now either, so I can't retest. :-|Reply

Vantage delivers a theoretical 86% lead. We find that last a questionable result, and it indicates that Intel may have spent more time working on 3DMark optimizations than on actual gaming compatibility and performance.

No, that's because 3DMark Vantage uses the retarded scheme where it includes the CPU scores as part of the final score. 3DMark06 was barely acceptable as a gaming benchmark because it started that, Vantage makes it worse.Reply

Yes, it includes CPU performance as well, but you'll notice that nowhere in our CPU specific tests do we get 86%. In heavily threaded testing, we can achieve a 76% performance increase, but that's purely CPU based. Vantage includes CPU performance, but it's not as big of a factor as the GPU. 3DMark06 also includes CPU but shows only a 5% lead, which is more realistic.Reply

1. 3DMark Vantage scores=GPU score(which is affected by the CPU like in real games) + CPU score2. Some some CPU offloading(Never seen the game do that on the HD Graphics though)*3. DX10 behavior on Intel is kinda like Nvidia. There's less loss from DX9 to DX10 code than on AMD.

*You can test this out by using the graphics control panel and going from Application(hardware mode) and Software Processing(software mode)Reply

I just picked up a similar tigris laptop, except it had better specs and was only $380. At that price, I don't care if the Intel one wins because I doubt it'll ever compete at that price point. :) I didn't even bother with a warranty, it's disposable basic gaming on the go.

What size battery is in that? Probably a 48Wh, but I'm curious. Looking directly at Frys, I can't find the laptop listed above. What's the exact Lenovo model? I'm guessing it's the G555, but with some downgrades relative to the Lenovo store model. But yeah, $330 it can break in a year and you still won't care much.Reply

I know you are at the mercy of what OEM sent you (since you don't want to spend $1000 to $2000 buying hardware for a simple article), but please try to get some of these AMD processors for these are going to be the more competitive AMDs (and more relevant).

Note all these processors have hardware virtualization unlike the atoms and some of the intel culvs/core 2 offerings. Also note that none of the current AMD mobile processors offer l3 cache

While the instructions per clock per core is not going to change much with theChamplain processors (Mid 2010 with DDR3 uses K,P, or N monikers) vsCaspain processors (Late 2009 with DDR2 uses M moniker, the dual cores come only in 35w tdps).The Champlain processors achieve lower tdps, have ddr3 support or have more cores for the same tdp with ddr3 support when compared to the Caspain processors. I did not list the other new Champlain processors (the "value" models) for performance wise they should be similar to the one you demoed today (P520, N530, P320, N330). We won't get processors with more instructions per clock per core until the upcoming Llano (fusion, phenom II based with 1mb l2 cache per core, 10watts and above) and Ontario (fusion, bobcat based, 1-10watts aimed for netbooks, tablets, and other low power devices) . AMD finally has a competitive line of notebook processors on paper, for low tdps they may have something as good or almost as good as intel culv, at higher tdps they may not have as many instructions per clock as intel but then they are fighting that with more cores, or against the i7 720qm an extremly lower tdp.

(finally I just want to say that I am not an AMD fanboy, the last 4 processors I have bought have been intel. I7 920, Q6600, SU2300 Notebook, T7700 Notebook)Reply

I dont really understand the point of posting gaming scores with these laptops. Would anybody really game at 800x600 and minimun settings??? And nearly all the games are unplayable at the quite low native resolution on either platform. Reply

As a computer salesperson the answer is yes. Most people who come in wanting this price point you can upsale to a better gaming laptop (or convince them to get a light to high gaming desktop instead), for honestly you get a much better experience for a few hundred more.

That said I often have customers come in where they can't physically pay more (due to finances) or won't pay more. Often the end user (not necessary the buyer) is going to be a college student who is going to play WoW, or is going to be a teenager who wants to play some random computer game on his laptop.Reply

Definitely, I have a great gaming rig at home and I don't need one in a laptop as well that will just sit and not be used when I'm at home (money wasted). All I care about is having fun in some games, not staring at eye candy. That's what my eyefinity setup is for. I played a game of COH last night on the $380 laptop I posted above, and it was just as fun as on my real system and was perfectly smooth but still looked just fine with all the detail on low. Once again I wasn't focused on whether or not my soldiers had visible uniform detail, I just wanted to have fun. Being able to do that on a laptop that cost the same as JUST my video card on my gaming rig (5870) is pretty amazing to me.Reply

Ditto to what OldPueblo said. I already have a good gaming rig(Phenom II 920, 8GB RAM, Radeon 5850). I wanted something cheap to watch movies in bed(Netflix, Amazon On Demand, etc) plus something I could game on when I head over to a friends house or home where I can play CoH with my nephew. I was also able to turn down the graphics enough to get around 30-40fps at the full resolution 1366 x 768 but still 'good enough' details. Or I can play WoW with even higher framerates.

I had been looking at netbooks mainly for their battery life but two things stopped me. One, no netbook should be above $299 imo and two, when reading reviews on retail websites only a few could handle streaming video. The ones that could usually conflicted with my first point. In comes the Acer Aspire 5551-2450. I couldn't beat the value I got for only $399. Granted my last laptop, which is still running, was a Dell Inspiron 700m(~$1200 at the time) so I was pretty blown away with what I received for such a low price. At that price, functionality won over portability, weight and battery life. Granted, if I were a road warrior and had to carry something around every day and didn't need much computing power beyond internet access and MS office functionality I would give a netbook much more serious thought. And let's face it, no matter the laptop, they are more portable than a full PC rig.

I've never bought Acer and I've read some bad comments yet they also have very good comments on Newegg. This is one of the few times I bought something before it had any reviews so I also purchased an extra year of warranty(hopefully the company Newegg picked is good if I need to use it) just in case.

If they had managed to put in bluetooth, e-SATA and/or an integrated microphone(mine looks like it has one but is either disabled purposely or missing the actual hardware as there is a tiny hole right next to the webcam but I see no way to enable it), they would never be able to keep this thing in stock for long at that price.

I was pleasantly surprised by the bootup speed(less than 30 seconds even with 68-74 processes running in the background), my first encounter with Windows Media Center, the LCD had a better viewing angle than I expected, the keyboard is spacious, I like the style of the individual keys, the trackpad is responsive without any unexpected behavior so far and pretty much stutter free playback of my videos, streaming from the net or my mediasmart server.

Couple things I 'felt' might cause future trouble. The build quality seems ok. This from picking it up on one side and feeling little flex in the casing. But what worries me are the hinges not lasting. They feel like they could possibly snap after a while. You need to grip the LCD just right so it does not flex awkwardly when pushing back the lid. In regards to the wireless, I'm currently using G speeds due to my U-verse modem and wonder how much trouble I will run into once I upgrade to an N router since the specs for this laptop mention Draft-N. How this spec is still available for a recently released laptop is a head-scratcher.

I beat MW2 at 780x480 and just about minimum settings and enjoyed it a lot.Every game is different.Obviously integrated graphics aren't made for serious enthusiast type games though, but hey better chances with games.Reply

This is what happens when you try to do it "on the cheap" and try to cover 3 incompatible topics into a single article:1) introduction and "comparison" of two SPECIFIC boxes Acer sent you2) current state of the market Intel vis-a-vis AMD3) abilities comparison of current Intel and AMD value paltforms

Each of these requires a different approach testing-wise, configuration/system wise as well as point-of-view wise.End result is an (for a non-expert) incomprehensible article that barely does PR for the Gateway model covering partly 1) topic.

IF you ever get into the same situation, please do no repeat this attempt at hobbyist hybridization.

Split the information into AT LEAST 2 articles:-------------------------------------------------1) Apples-to-Apples comparison of 2 platforms along with associated market report - this means identical HDD, DVD, battery, accessories, etc - this means most gaming tests at native with older games - this means NO LCD, WiFi, Bluetooth, WebCam tests or connectivity comparisons

2) Comparison of these 2 SPECIFIC systems themselves where performance is mentioned as secondary and most system specific things like LCD's are evaluated (so that Acer is happy and sends you new toys)

Here is an excerpt of bad part of the article: (FYI)- you use incomparable units price-wise (they are not market-representative)- you use incomparable units configuration wise (they are not platform-representative)- you compare the 2 SPECIFIC units and forcibly "draw conclusions" for the whole market- you screw the graphs with an unnecessarily huge amount of comparison points- you fail to separate the tested candidates in the graphs

You have done MUCH better in the past. Hopefully, we will not have to suffer a repeat.Reply

I hardly think this qualifies as "lazy writing"... in fact, trying to condense more content into a single article would be the exact opposite. It's far easier to do two laptops separately than to do a head-to-head; I've done both, and it generally takes four times as long to do the head-to-head as it would have taken to do a single review--or twice as long as two separate reviews if you prefer.

Beyond that, the laptops reviewed didn't come from the same source, even though Acer technically owns Gateway and makes both. The last time I did this sort of review, Gateway was good enough to send us both the Intel and AMD laptop; usually, that doesn't happen, and in this case the AMD laptop came from Acer via AMD. I'm also not sure how 2 and 3 in your list are even separate subjects.

I have my own critiques against the article, but most of that involves me not being able to get the exact hardware I wanted to test. While swapping HDDs, batteries, etc. would make it as equal as possible, I've looked at that in the past and found very little reason to go to extra measures. HDDs might make a small difference in PCMark, but that's about it.

I would argue that outside of price, these two laptops are viable candidates to represent the market, but the only way to know for sure is to test a LOT more laptops from each platform. Given the difficulty of acquiring AMD laptops, plus the fact that the Gateway is the sole Intel HD Graphics laptop (i.e. no Optimus or discrete GPU) we've had shipped our way, my real conclusion is this: these are commodity item laptops that the majority of manufacturers don't particularly care to have reviewed.

The graphs are always a tough call. If I remove "old" comparison points, people complain that we are only looking at a few options. If I leave them in, other people complain that they're information overload. I tried to include only laptops that are relatively competitive, with only one representative of major platforms on most tests. Which laptops do you think we should remove? I can make an argument for just about every one to stay or go.

The Toshiba A505, NV59, and 5542 all need to be there obviously, along with the NV52/NV58. Atom is the cheapest netbook option with good battery life, so it should stay. Atom + ION is also worthy of inclusion. CULV certainly needs to be in there at least once, and CULV + Optimus is a nice extra. Lenovo T410 is tough to justify, but it represents a higher-end i5 notebook. U30Jc is a good laptop that we recommend, so that should be in the charts. MSI X610 could go, but it's one of the few other AMD laptops we've tested; same for Ferrari One. Studio 14z is a better overall platform than any of the current Intel/AMD offerings in my book--a better GPU, and Core 2 Duo beats the new i3/i5 platforms. At this point, I figure leaving in a few other laptops doesn't hurt, but I could remove the T410, HP 4310m, Lenovo U150, MSI X610, 1201N, and Acer 1410 and not feel too bad.

As for the battery charts, the one thing I've come to know over the years of laptop testing is that even if two laptops are the same in terms of specs, they can have different battery life because of BIOS optimizations and other low level differences. So I leave in as many laptops as I feel reasonable. Lazy? Well, it's easier to trim out the extra stuff honestly, and I hope it helps people realize that just because laptops appear similar on the surface, there are often differences underneath.

Your accusation that I try to "forcibly draw conclusions" is exactly what I'm trying to avoid doing. I specifically DIDN'T come to a strong conclusion because without testing at least five candidates from each platform I just don't feel comfortable doing so. The only conclusions I drew were in regards to these two specific laptops. The NV5933u is a good buy at $550; the 5542, not so much. At $400-$450, it's also worth buying, depending on your needs. And since I'm only really able to analyze a couple specific candidates, there's no point in omitting other tests like the LCD.

What performance criteria did I neglect? Battery life, general apps, CPU, GPU are all covered. The LCD testing is almost an afterthought--I wrote two paragraphs and said both LCDs suck. Yeah, I'm sure that Acer is happy to see that LCD comparison and will now "send me new toys". Get real. Performance for a $500 really is a secondary consideration for 99% of buyers, and rightfully so! I'd take a well made but slower laptop any day over a faster laptop with a crappy keyboard and LCD. But few if any budget laptops are well made, so the point is moot.

Anyway, we're working to get more laptops, particularly AMD systems, and as we get those we can come to a few more conclusions. So far, though, outside of performance and price being acceptable, I don't think there's much to say about the new platforms relative to the old.Reply

That is a $329 notebook. http://tinyurl.com/25ypk7o (And this is an M320!) I have no trouble finding deals like that every time I look. That $329 notebook is being substituted for a full retail version ($500) from Amazon. And then you actually have the audacity(!) to compare that ripoff to an Intel notebook that, by your own admission, would normally retail for $749!! ($600 if you drop the BD and scrounge for deals.)

So you are literally comparing an Intel notebook that is twice as expensive as the AMD, and seriously gaming the numbers to try and cover that up. What is the point in doing that when it is transparently obvious? Reply

I know you love to be biased against Intel, but a one week sale at Fry's for $329 with 3GB RAM and a 160GB HDD isn't the same notebook. Plus, that's a laptop with a mail-in rebate. What's the price without rebate? How fast will the rebate come? And finally, not everyone has a Fry's local. We write for the entire US, not just CA and a few other states. And yet you accuse me of "absurd bias". More to the point, what do I say at the conclusion?

"This isn't a knock against AMD laptops in general, but if they can't deliver clearly superior battery life and performance, they need to be priced a lot lower. For those looking to buy a last generation AMD Tigris laptop, we turn once more to Gateway and Best Buy. The NV5378u is identical in features and design to the NV5933u, but it's midnight blue in color instead of cherry red. What's more, the price of $429 (plus tax) makes it far easier to recommend. You can often find other M300 laptops priced at close to $400 on sale, and those should offer the same general experience as the 5542."

In other words, I don't recommend the Acer 5542, simply because it's poorly priced as far as I can find. I go on to recommend a $429 laptop at Best Buy (which competes directly against the NV59), and I suggest that any AMD laptop under $400 becomes a far better deal. So, thanks for the Fry's link, but please take the blinders off and stop with the "bias" accusations. Bias would be if I said something untrue in order to make one product look better than another. As stated above, the only firm conclusions I've come to in this article are that the NV5933u is a great deal, and the 5542 is not. The NV53 is a good buy at $430, and if you have a Fry's getting a Lenovo for $330 (after dealing with the MIR) is fine as well.Reply

The normal price for the laptop is $449.99. The sale price is $329.99 with no rebate. (this price is for only SJ, LA, Renton). The rest of the fry's chain has the price for $349.99 on sale.

Now the black text is saying you can also get a printer free after mail in rebate. If you do the bundle the total is $329.99+$29.99 in store and the mail in rebate reimburses you $30 dollars (aka the cost of the printer.) You do not have to get the printer.Reply

Athlon II P320 15" notebook on newegg for $400. No rebates. The deal expired quickly, but there will be more. I think it is a safe bet that AMD 25W dual core notebooks are going to be easily found all summer long for $400, and probably $300 by the time back-to-school starts. And I predict that next you will compare a P320 to a i330 that still costs twice as much.Reply

Next up is a Toshiba with Phenom II P920 quad-core (25W) with switchable HD 5650 graphics. I'm not sure it's the best option out there for AMD, but it's what AMD is sending me. It will at least be interesting to see how performance compares against i5-430M with the same GPU, and I'm told that the HD 4200 mode with the P920 will actually deliver better battery life than the M600/M300 stuff. We shall see.

Personally, I would *love* to get one of the $400 P320 laptops for testing, but that's not happening yet unless I go and buy one. And we might just do that....Reply

Wow a 1.6GHz quad core with 512k cache? I can already see that thing getting walloped by a SU7300 in everything except video encoding. (And who would do that on a notebook?)

Has it occured to you that Intel makes backroom deals with companies to get them to send reviewers only these oddball AMD notebook configurations specifically to make AMD look bad? Despite losing a billion dollars by engaging in these tactics, I am sure that Intel regards it as merely a cost of doing business. No doubt they've made $10 billion through these shady tactics.Reply

512k cache per core. 2mb total cache. AMD processors have each individual core possessing their own l2 cache. The new Core I series is the same way from intel. The old Intel Core2Duos and Core2Quads shared their l2 cache between 2 of the cores.

Regardless 25w for 4 cores is extremely good energy wise per core. That is 6.5w per a 1.6 ghz single core or pretty much atom territory. Sadly the p520 (2.3 ghz dual core, 1 mb l2 cache per core, 2 mb l2 cache total) is going to be faster in most things, for not enough things are coded for quad cores yet.Reply

Actually, AMD sent this laptop after buying it from the manufacturer, so unless Toshiba somehow convinced AMD to send the A665, I doubt Intel had anything to do with the choice. It's doing okay on battery life (226 minutes idle with a 48Wh battery). Unfortunately, the notebook just died this morning (after less than 24 hours) while I was trying to watch the World Cup online (Flash video).

I don't know if the laptop was just banged around in shipping, or if the GPU had a glitch, or what, but I do know that it is dead. It locked, I force restarted, and now the fans turn on and nothing ever shows up on the LCD. Weird. But a replacement is on the way, so the review should still come in the next 10 days or so.Reply

If someone could do a review on the laptop that I currently suspect is the best "bang for your buck" out there. It's made by compal, and available on Cyberpower.com who's machines you've reviewed before. If you'd like it configured like I did, which I think is the best bang for buck, do this: Go to the website. mouse over 15.6" Laptops and click on the $999 Xplorer X6-8500. It has a 1080p screen. (I'm not sure why the people who run this site do this, but even though the other configurations use the same chassis when personalized they come out to cost more than this one; annoying since it makes me configure all 3 or 4 machines built on the same base chassis to figure out which one is cheapest/best for me.) Then I configured it with the Core i7-620M CPU. (to get it over 1K so I can take advantage of the 5% off.) 4GB 0DDR3-1333, hopefully 7-7-7-21, probably not, but hopefully. ATI MR HD5650 1GB GDDR3 320GB 7200rpm HDD (I did this cause I'm gonna take that HDD out and use the Seagate Momentus XT 500GB, thanks for that review!!) Everything else on that page I left untouched. The only thing I did on page 2 was switch to Intel wifi with bluetooth; Though I'm curious if the MSI option is equal/better; 17 bucks isn't nothing. It has HDMI out and a fingerprint reader. This page says 3 USB ports, the specs sheet says 4USB ports; not sure which is true. (I do wish they were USB 3.0 ports, but I was hoping you guys would test some stuff and tell me if that even matters for use with an external hard drive, mechanical disk 7200rpm. Transferring large files like movies and games mostly.) On page 3 I select "none, format only" for the OS. And select "LCD perfect assurance" cause even 1 dead pixel is unacceptable to me. This brings the total to $1008.90 after 5% off, or $992.75 if you get the MSI network card. So yeah, I really hope you guys can get a hold of one of these for review; as a loner or given as a review unit or maybe someone will just buy one and review it cause it's really tempting me right now... like a lot! If you're review is good I'm gonna start saving up and hopefully be able to buy it around Christmas. Thanks guys! A loyal reader. - Brian Reply

I went looking for a p920 review (quad core Phenom II for laptops) and all I'm seeing is a comparison of Intel's latest i3/i5 vs 2 year old Turion Ultra CPUs. I have a laptop I bought almost 2 years ago that is a Turion Ultra / 2.2Ghz with ATI 3200 video that is just as good as the AMD system in this comparison.

These quad core Phenoms are showing up for $700 at Wal-Mart with ATI 4250 GPUs. Wouldn't that be a more interesting comparison???Reply